Cal State Fullerton students took a walk down memory lane upon stepping inside the Titan Student Union Center Gallery on Tuesday for the opening reception of this semester’s Associated Students Art Show.
The theme for this semester’s art show was “Memory and Nostalgia,” and yielded creativity in various art forms. All 20 student submissions were displayed, featuring mediums from watercolor and graphite to digital and 3D media.
Brooke Ramirez, a fourth-year human services major and ASI art programs lead, said the art pieces were arranged primarily by color to make it look more cohesive, though the majority of the 3D printed pieces were arranged together. This included her own art piece, titled “As They Fade Away.”
“I really just wanted to highlight my friends and some really happy memories that I had,” Ramirez said. “I kind of wanted to challenge myself by using clay, so I used the clay for the bottom.”
Ramirez’s piece was made with clay, cardboard, wire and paper. It presents various photos of her and her friends emerging from a sculpted head.
Sage Ginorio, a fourth-year advertising major and ASI art programs assistant, took what she called her “last opportunity” to submit her own 3D printed piece, “Repressed.”
Ginorio admitted she was worried about her process because she doesn’t consider herself to be an artist. But she decided to stick with her skill set and took pictures and mementos from her childhood to convey the concept of memories that are hard to recall.
“I’m more of an arts-and-crafts person, and so I think that’s why mine looks very much like arts-and-crafts, like a little kid made it,” Ginorio said. “I’m not the best drawer, painter, and I can’t really emulate what I want to say in those ways, but I can through my crafts.”
First, second and third place ribbons were awarded to the best submissions in the traditional, digital and 3D print categories. Ramirez said the awards are usually voted on by professors or art majors within ASI.
Winning entries included an oil painting inspired by old Polaroid photos, a 3D house made of cardboard and a digital illustration portraying an encounter with a turtle.
Bryant Gudino, a fourth-year studio art major, came to the opening reception to support his friend Victor Castaneda, a third-year creative photography and experimental media major.
Castaneda’s submission, titled “Becoming,” is a digital photo depicting a model whose face is surrounded by paper butterflies in the golden light.
“When he first showed it to me, because I saw when he was printing it out for the show – I didn’t know it was for this show back then – but I was like, ‘Wow, you did this?’” Gudino said. “I’m just so wowed of what people make.”
Gudino said that galleries like these provide student artists good exposure. However, he also emphasized that artists should not let their creative process be hampered by the prospect of landing a piece in a gallery because even privately kept art has meaning.
Another submission that stuck out to Gudino was marketing graduate student Michael Butorac’s acrylic painting “Unforgotten Friday’s,” which took third place in the traditional category. The piece illustrates a wolf carrying plates of food along a wall filled with pop culture memorabilia.
“It just reminds me of being a kid, that’s your most creative time,” Gudino said. “I feel like, as artists, that’s kind of the main goal. I think, at least for me, it’s like, ‘I want to be as imaginative and creative as I was when I was five years old.’ I feel like we just lose that on the way to adulthood, and most of it’s just getting that freedom back to let ourselves be kids.”
The ASI Spring 2026 Art Show will be displayed at the TSU Center Gallery until April 29.